Church of the Sepulchre of Saint Mary, also Tomb of the Virgin Mary (Hebrew: קבר מרים; Arabic: قبر السيدة العذراء مريم; Greek: Τάφος της Παναγίας; Armenian: Սուրբ Մարիամ Աստվածածնի գերեզման) or the Church of the Assumption (Latin: Ecclesia Assumptionis), is a Christian church built around an ancient Judean rock-cut tomb in the Kidron Valley – at the foot of Mount of Olives, in East Jerusalem – believed by Eastern Christians to be the burial place of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

[4] A narrative known as the Euthymiaca Historia (written probably by Cyril of Scythopolis in the 5th century) relates how the Emperor Marcian and his wife, Pulcheria, requested the relics of the Virgin Mary from Juvenal, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, while he was attending the Council of Chalcedon (451).

According to the account, Juvenal replied that, on the third day after her burial, Mary's tomb was discovered to be empty, only her shroud being preserved in the church of Gethsemane.

[7] A small upper church on an octagonal footing was built by Patriarch Juvenal (during Marcian's rule) over the location in the 5th century; this was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 614.

[citation needed] Alternatively, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor writes that a church is mentioned only in the late 6th century, and that – if indeed it was destroyed in 614 – it was rebuilt and was visited by Arculf (c. 670) and described as two-level and round.

[8] During the following centuries the church was destroyed and rebuilt many times, but the crypt was left untouched, as for Muslims it is the burial place of the mother of prophet Isa (Jesus).

[8] On the right side of the staircase (towards the east) there is the chapel of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne, initially built to hold the tomb of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, the daughter of Baldwin II, whose sarcophagus has been removed from there by the Greek Orthodox.

[8] On the left (towards the west) there is the chapel of Saint Joseph, Mary's husband, initially built as the tomb of two other female relatives of Baldwin II.

Within the church is located a famous icon called Panagia Ierosolymitissa (All-holy Lady of Jerusalem) which, according to tradition, was miraculously created without human intervention.

[11] A legend, which was first mentioned by Epiphanius of Salamis in the 4th century AD, purported that Mary may have spent the last years of her life in Ephesus, Turkey.

Another tradition exists among the Christians of Nineveh in northern Iraq, that the tomb of Mary is located near Erbil, linking the site to the direction of tilt of the former Great Mosque of al-Nuri minaret in Mosul.